Think of a time there's somebody who is misunderstanding you and you're feeling the pain of that.
That would be a good one to focus on.
And so you might try my favorite method of having your small suffering self inside your heart.
And you don't want this one to suffer.
You're moved by this pain of being misunderstood.
It really is quite painful.
And so you want to take that pain away.
So you breathe in the dense dark clouds into your outer rim of your heart,
Into the rest of your heart.
And on the exhale,
You breathe happiness in the form of bright,
Spacious clouds into them.
See it soaking in.
And breathe a few more breaths this way.
Breathing in the dense heavy clouds of suffering,
Of being misunderstood.
And breathing out as you exhale,
You see the bright clouds soaking into them.
And again.
Allow yourself to be moved.
And see that small suffering self no longer feeling like they have to hold themselves together.
They can just relax.
And so they soak in the bright clouds all the more.
And now that small suffering one is smiling.
And we breathe one more time for them.
And on the exhale,
Those clouds for happiness are for ultimate,
Forever happiness.
And they soak in.
Now we imagine somebody we feel close to,
Somebody we care very much about.
We probably know of a time when they suffered from being misunderstood.
We want to take away that suffering.
It's natural for us to want to.
And so we breathe in those dark clouds.
We're seeing them in front of us,
This person,
And we're breathing in the dense heavy clouds of their suffering right into our hearts.
And through the compassion of our hearts,
We're able to bring forth from that vast ocean clouds of happiness.
We see those bright clouds soaking into them.
And we breathe for them again.
Bodhisattvas are known as heroes because it takes some courage.
Now,
We imagine someone else we feel close to.
At some point,
They too have suffered from being misunderstood.
And so we breathe for them.
We don't want them to suffer.
We want them to be ultimately happy always.
Now,
Maybe there's another we can think of.
Maybe we don't know them quite as well,
But we know they've felt misunderstood before.
And so we breathe for them.
Now,
You might pick somebody you've seen in this room.
And we already know that all of us have been misunderstood in some way or another.
So picking someone in this room who you don't know very well,
Breathe for them.
They've suffered just as much as you and all the people you know.
And they want to be just as happy.
Now,
You might think of whole demographics of people who have been misunderstood because of their sexual orientation or their skin color or their religion.
So now,
From all directions,
You're breathing in those dark,
Dense clouds of suffering.
Make a demographic so that there's some focus.
You don't want any of them to suffer.
And you want them all to be ultimately happy always.
Imagine that all of their faces are turning from a pained expression to a smile.
One more breath.
Now pick another demographic of people who have suffered and been misunderstood.
We want to take away that suffering from all of them.
So we're breathing in those dense clouds from all directions,
From those suffering ones.
And breathing out the spacious,
Joyous,
Sparkling clouds soaking into them.
Keep an awareness of making the breaths even,
The in-breaths and out-breaths.
All in-breath,
And we can get weighed down and depressed.
Too much of just the out-breath,
And there's no substance to the practice.
So keep them even.
And move on to another demographic,
Whether it's religion or just somebody from a country that's unpopular,
Let's say in this country,
Or people with disabilities.
There's so many reasons that people misunderstand each other and cause great suffering.
Now,
Finally,
We know that everybody at some time or another has been misunderstood and has suffered terribly from it.
People have even been killed because of being misunderstood and suffered great hardship,
And expelled from countries and so on.
And so we breathe for everyone,
All beings.
So the dense clouds are pouring in from all directions,
And the bright,
Glowing clouds are going out in all directions to each and every being,
All of us together on the ocean.
We are the ocean.
We are the ocean.
We are the ocean.
